Developing and Implementing an Ergonomic …

1 Developing and Implementing an Ergonomic audit for manufacturing By: Gary S. Louie For: QAS 515-41 Human Factors Jim Clauson, Summer 03 CSUDH MSQA Program July 28, 2003 Table of Contents Main Text pg.

2 3 Bibliography 7 Appendix I Proactive and Reactive Activities 8 Appendix II Costs as it relates to Ergonomics 9 Appendix III Example of Injury Breakdown 10 Appendix IV Work Experiences, Ergonomic Concerns 12 Appendix V Example of Ergonomic audit Checklist 13 (see enclosed MS Excel spreadsheet for four pages plus back page of audit form) Appendix VI Useful Equations and Guidelines 14 2 The purpose of this paper is to develop and implement an Ergonomic audit for use in a manufacturing environment.

3 With the emergence of Ergonomic -related disorders such as Cumulative Trauma Disorders (CTD) that include Carpel Tunnel Syndrome (CTS), Tendonitis, and Tension Neck Syndrome, appearing as a result of work activities, it is necessary for companies to consider any number of different methods to assist in preventing these disorders from occurring. 1 One method to help a company in reaching this goal is to develop and implement an audit specifically focused on Ergonomic issues in the workplace. An audit is defined by the American Society for Quality (ASQ) organization as a planned, independent, and documented assessment to determine whether agreed-upon requirements are being met.

4 2 Put simply, it is a method for double-checking whether a company or its departments are following the procedures correctly. It is but one tool that a company can use to check for effectiveness in this case, ergonomics within the workplace. A number of other tools exist for purposes related to Ergonomic analysis and are listed in Appendix I. Suffice to say, an organization can help their workforce and also positively impact their bottom line by Implementing any combination of these tools within their ergonomics program.

5 Concerning the topic of costs, an audit makes an impact in this fashion it can be viewed as preventative in nature and with the time and effort spent early in the process, it can help identify problems while promoting problem assessment before they become severe. As seen in Appendix II, the dollars saved by investing in preventative activities such as education, audits, and exercises can be enormous in terms of reducing if not eliminating Ergonomic injuries. As one recent report by the State of California indicated, the impact of Ergonomic injuries to workers in California was conservatively estimated at $4 billion dollars and covering a third of all workplace injuries.

6 3 Where does one begin in establishing an audit for ergonomics? Especially for a company that does not have an established program for ergonomics, the minimum that a company can start is by reviewing existing injuries from the workplace. Either the OSHA log or any documented record that a company has on injuries will suffice no injury should be dismissed as even near-miss accidents could be caused by an ergonomics-related situation. For a manufacturing company, the next item would be to separate the injuries into categories: office versus manufacturing floor, light work (inspection) versus heavy work (material handling), departments, body parts.

7 Whichever category or categories are used to differentiate the injuries is acceptable as long as the company realizes it must be useful and meaningful. See Appendix III for one example of how this categorization is done. In this example, the Pareto Principle was applied (ie- 1 Kroemer, Karl (1997). Ergonomic Design of Material Handling Systems. Boca Raton: CRC Press LLC Lewis Publishers. Table 2-2, pg. 15-17 and Table 2-3, pg. 23-24. Cumulative Trauma Disorders in the Workplace Bibliography, Sep, 1995, retrieved on June 28, 2003, from , section on Management of Upper Extremity Cumulative Trauma Disorders, Table 1, 2 Russell, editor (2000).)

8 The Quality audit Handbook: Principles, Implementation, and Use (2nd ed). Milwaukee: ASQ Quality Press, pg. xxvi. 3 Ergonomic Injuries in California report dated March 31, 2001, retrieved on July 21, 2003, from , 3prioritizing the highest incidence of injuries) to determine where the company should focus their attention. In this case, strains were the major problem area since they comprised over 66% of the total injuries incurred at the workplace. In addition, attaching a dollar figure is meaningful to determine if the largest incidence of injuries also happens to be the costliest.

9 In some situations, this may not happen so it is helpful to apply cost figures to check this correlation. For another example using the Pareto Principle, there is a report generated by the University of Maryland on OSHA statistics indicating the breakdown by injury condition and the associated insurance cost in reference to CTD s. 4 Here are a number of different work environments that the author has been exposed to over the years: extrusion and casting plant, a microelectronics facility, a mechanical and electrical assembly operation, packaging for a specialty clothing manufacturer, and screen printing operations.

10 In each of these facilities, there were situations that exposed the employee to Ergonomic -related problems (see Appendix IV). Here is a breakdown of common work areas within any manufacturing environment: 1) Office Administration/Computer Workstations 2) Quality Assurance Laboratory 3) manufacturing /Production Floor 4) Inventory/Material Handling 5) Facilities/Maintenance Here are groupings of areas that are common within a manufacturing facility and that have potential Ergonomic impact to the employee.